Hands Up for Billy Miner Pie ice cream

It’s not often that feelings of elation and joy at the grocery store trump the sticker shock of rising prices.

But it does happen.

I was walking through Your Independent Grocer last week, and I saw something that absolutely needed to end up in my cart. It was Billy Miner Pie ice cream.

The question wasn’t if I was going to buy it. It was whether I would buy two, three, maybe six?

If you have ever eaten at the Keg, you have likely either had or at least know about Billy Miner pie.

But if you actually know who Bill Miner is, put your hands up.

Do you see what I did there? If you didn’t put your hands up, let me explain.

Bill Miner was born in 1847. There are reports that he was born in Michigan, but others say Kentucky. Either way, he ended up in California and spent much of his life there in and out of prison, as he had become a career criminal as a stagecoach robber. He eventually moved up to British Columbia and became Canada’s mot famous and notorious train robber.

At first, he was using the name George Edwards. He is believed to have orchestrated the first train robbery in BC. The heist took part in 1904 in Silverdale, about 35 km east of Vancouver. That robbery is widely reported to be the first in Canada, but there are reports of a train robbery in Port Credit, Ontario that took place 30 years earlier.

Miner had nicknames and was romanticized in the era. He was known as the Grey Fox and the Gentleman Bandit. He was most known, however, for the famous phrase he used when holding up a train or during another robbery.

“Hands up!”, he would say. If it was possible for anything to become viral in the early 1900s, “hands up” managed to do it.

Miner robbed Canadian Pacific Rail trans in 1904 and 1906. But in 1906, the Mounties finally got their man.

drew his gun. “Hands up!,” said the officer, as legend has it.

Miner’s arrest and trial was one of the biggest media events in the history of British Columbia, and the rest of Canada paid close attention. Miner had become a cult hero, like Bonnie and Clyde or Al Capone would become. Because the CPR was very unpopular among residents of British Columbia, the train robber was often cheered and romanticized, like a modern-day Robin Hood.

As the tree men were transported by train to the provincial penitentiary in New Westminster, supporters of Miner lined the route and cheered.

Bill Miner’s time in prison was not a long one. He escaped in 1907 and eventually made his way back to the United States, ending up in the American southeast. He resumed his career as a train robber, escaping prison in Georgia on two different occasions.

In 1913, Bill Miner passed away while in prison at Milledgeville, Georgia. He died of gastritis, picked up from drinking brackish water during an escape attempt.

While Miner’s time in Canada was brief, his legend in British Columbia lasted for generations. The Keg, a BC-based Canadian steakhouse chain, named drinks after Miner and also introduced Billy Miner pie. They also had photos of Minor as part of their décor.

The Keg is not the only restaurant or bar to glorify Bill Miner.

On the corner of 5th Avenue and Lansdowne Street in Kamloops, a mural of Miner’s famous Monte Creek robbery was painted on the exterior wall of Cactus Jack’s Saloon and Dance Hall. In Maple Ridge, the original Bank of Montreal building built in the early 1900s became the famous Billy Miner Pub.

The Whistle Brewing Company of Penticton even launched a red ale called Hands Up! As a tribute to Bill Miner.

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Miner and his two accomplices, Tom “Shorty” Dunn and Louis Colquhoun, attempted to rob a payroll train near Kamloops at Monte Creek, which was then known as Ducks. Unfortunately, they chose the wrong car of the train to rob. They walked away with only $15 and a bottle of kidney pills that Miner had grabbed from a shelf.

They med fled into the woods, and they were heavily pursued in a manhunt. The three men were having lunch near Douglas Lake. They were surrounded by a posse. Miner introduced himself as George Edwards and claimed that he and he and his partners were prospectors. The officer in charge of the posse did not believe him, and he placed the men under arrest.

Dunn resisted and pulled out in an attempt to fire at the officer but was shot in the leg. Colquhoun was disarmed, and Miner never

And a legend would not be a legend without rumours of a hidden treasure. Folklore suggests Miner buried loot in the forest near Silverdale. Historians say he either dug up the money and used it to get to the United States after escaping from prison, while some say that the treasure is still out there for the taking.

There was a song called ‘The Ballad of Bill Miner’ recorded by the San Francisco band The Blackout Cowboys. There was a Canadian film about Miner called The Grey Fox, starring Richard Farnsworth.

So the next time you head to the Keg for dinner and the dessert menu comes out, you now know all about the man that their famous Billy Miner pie is named after.

And on your next trip to Your Independent Grocer, hands up if you want some Billy Miner Pie ice cream.

The Editor, I’m completely astonished at the subject matter that appeared in the last edition of the Barrhaven Independent! For those who may have missed it, the story concerned a Manotick parent who attended an OCDSB meeting wanting to talk about transgender washroom policy, but who found himself dismissed from public delegation before he had delivered the first two minutes of his presentation. The Independent didn’t print his speech verbatim, but it did say his comments, “were aimed at protecting his children from potential predators,” which probably explains his dismissal. If anyone reading the article felt a sense of deja vu, it’s possibly because every decade or so, it seems someone feels the need to revisit this issue despite the fact that it was debated and settled years ago. The last time I saw anyone trot out the old “transgender predator” canard was in an article by Ken Gallinger that appeared in the Toronto Star on January 4, 2014, which elicited the following, still-relevant response from Barbara Hall, then Chief Commissioner of the Ontario Human Rights commission:

“There is a stereotype of connecting transgender people with wrongdoing and being sexual predators. We have never seen a documented case of a heterosexual man gaining access to a woman’s change room by posing as transgender. In fact, in washrooms and changerooms, and in society at large, transgender persons are more at risk than anyone else of being harassed, abused, assaulted, or even killed. Also, there is no new transgender “bathroom” policy. For more than

15 years, transgender people in Ontario have had the legal right to use the washroom –or changeroom – according to their lived gender identity. The elected Ontario legislature, not the human rights tribunal, put these laws in place.”

I’m not sure where this Manotick parent got the idea that school boards in Ontario have the power to ignore the Ontario Human Rights Code when they draft policy, but he really ought to get himself up to speed. As Hall clearly states, “the elected Ontario legislature...put these laws in place.” That would seem to indicate that instead of disrupting school board meetings, this fellow would be better advised to take his concerns directly to his MPP, or to Premier Doug Ford.

Andy Braid,

The Editor, The exercise of authority in shutting down a parent’s delegation at the March 7th meeting of the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board was shocking, but it can serve as a wake-up call to the parents of children in the board’s schools. In fact, it should concern us all, since all ratepayers provide school funding, and the recent display of such authority at St. Joseph’s High School in Renfrew shows it afflicts Catholic schools as well.

Nick Morabito had good reason and every right to raise the issue of trans-identifying biological males using girls’ washrooms and change rooms. As he noted, the schools have ungendered, private washrooms that can be used without causing anyone discomfort, regardless of their gender orientation. That’s supportive and in no way discriminates against an individual. To be denied the right to respectfully raise an issue for discussion is inexcusable. To be told that merely attempting a discussion is transphobic, is creating an unsafe environment and can’t be allowed is a senseless insult and a shameful exercise of authority that deserves condemnation. The school board’s statement following the meeting showed that they not only feel no shame but fail to understand the meaning of their “commitment to cultivating safe working and learning spaces”. Safe for whom, OCDSB?

Accusing people of transphobia is the language used by radical trans-activists, who seem to feel oppressed and therefore have a right to ignore the rights of non-trans people, especially girls and women, and demand free access to gendered spaces that differ from their biological sex. (Trans-activists also have replaced the scientific term “biological” with “assigned at birth”, as though a baby’s sex can’t be determined by observation.) Anyone who objects is likely to be called a “transphobe” and creating an “unsafe” environment by such activists and, increasingly, by those who go along with their view. Objections are even erroneously called “hate”. This bullying view has obviously infected school boards, including the OCDSB, with the appalling consequences we’re witnessing. The real danger is in having schoolboards corrupted by such ideology to the point of ignoring biology and creating danger. There’s good reason to wonder how and when this happened, but Canadian institutions, including even the Ontario Human Rights Code, are leading us down that path. Human rights matter and deserve respect, but apparently real human rights are now of less import- ance than “special” rights. Transphobia is an odd term that appeared only in the early 1990s. A phobia is normally defined as an exaggerated fear of something. Trans people are more likely to elicit sympathy than fear, but “transphobia” has been expanded well beyond its expected meaning and, as with the school board, is applied to any comment or policy that doesn’t embrace this new ideology. Perhaps the most accurate meaning of transphobia is fear of discussing trans issues, demonstrated by the truly transphobic school board members. Things change over time, some for good, others not. But the fundamental principle of equality, treating people of all kinds as worthy of respect, being heard and not discriminated against, is one that should never change. Mr. Morabito is following that principle, but the board is not. The school board may be under the illusion that its policies are virtuous, but it has some important lessons to learn.

David Wieland, Kars